


From a Bird to Ashes

by Icechild



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: AU, Infinity War AU, Multiverse, The Blip, hurt dick, marvel crossover, the snap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-09
Updated: 2019-12-09
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:15:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21728911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Icechild/pseuds/Icechild
Summary: Basically what if when Thanos snapped in infinity war it went across the multiverse. Instead of just killing half the people on that earth it went to every single earth and killed have the people. What if Robin had been dusted right in front of Batman. How will he cope without being able to find the person or cause of his little boy's vanishing. Will he take in another bird? Will the world see Batman become a villain?
Relationships: Dick Grayson/Bruce Wayne, Jason Todd & Bruce Wayne
Comments: 6
Kudos: 66





	From a Bird to Ashes

Batman and Robin were standing on the rooftop of the GCPD. It was a routine night for them and for Gotham. Jim was talking with them about a job well done. The dynamic duo had saved Gotham from certain death yet again and Jim honestly didn’t know how they always did it and how Robin was always smiling so bright at the end of the day.

The boy was like an actual miniature sun. Brightening up anything he walked into. It was like the horrors of the world just didn’t reach him. And Jim prayed every night he saw the brightly colored bird flying next to the Dark Knight that he would be okay and that the world wouldn’t lose the only light it has left. 

Everything was fine. 

Until Robin suddenly stopped laughing and stopped running around in circles around the Batsignal. He stumbled a bit at the end and put a hand up to his chest. Both of the adults on the rooftop with him noticing the change almost immediately and turning to the nine year old standing a few feet away from them. His breathing was starting to pick up and a pained look fell over his face as he turned and looked at the two adults. Batman and Jim were moving over to him quickly. Something was wrong. 

Robin stumbled a little and looked around like he wasn’t quite sure where he was. Something was very, very wrong here.

“Robin, what’s wrong?”

“B...I….I can’t….”

His legs gave out before he could finish. Falling into Batman’s arms and that was all Jim needed to call a medical team up to the roof. He’d be damned if he just stood around while one of Gotham’s heroes needed help. 

Batman cradled his boy close and tried to analyze him when the impossible seemed to happen. His little bird started to turn to dust right in front of him. Jim could hear screaming and looked down off the ledge of the building to see that Robin was not the sole victim of this assault. Half the people around the city streets were turning to dust, they just seemed to be vanishing much faster than the others. Why was Robin taking so long? Not that he was complaining but arguably the small boy should have vanished before the full grown adults. 

A choked sob had Jim turning back to see the vigilantes that had helped the world so many times.

“Batman…”

Tears were falling down the young boy’s face and Jim could feel his heart breaking with every second this event lasted. The boy didn’t deserve to suffer. Not after the things he’d done. 

“I-I don’t f-feel good…”

“Robin-”

“Daddy…”

More tears fell at the word and Jim felt his heart twist painfully. He saw something he never thought he would. Batman’s shoulders shook and Robin faded away with his last lingering words.

“I’m sorry…”

Then he was gone. A cloud of dust being washed away into the wind. Batman grasped for it but he missed. And the man didn’t move after that. Just doubled over into himself and the shakes continued. Batman was crying. 

Jim was lying if he said he wasn’t either. Robin was such a bright boy and that whole scene had taken all of his emotions and thrust them right out of him. The medical team finally made it up there. Storming out of the rooftop entrance to see what they never thought was even possible. Jim waved them away. The least he could do for the man that had saved the city so many times was a little bit of privacy at a time like this. He carefully made his way over but didn’t dare to touch him. He didn’t know what kind of reaction that would garner.

“Batman…”

“Don’t.”

“It wasn’t your fault.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Batman-”

“I’m getting to the bottom of this. Whoever is responsible, they will pay.”

His voice had turned into a verifiable growl by the end and Jim took pity on whoever it was that had done this. Well, not really. They deserved it. But he did have one thing to say.

“Don’t kill anyone.”

Instead of an actual response he watched the Knight stride to the edge of the roof and grapple off into the night. It was the first time he’d ever seen the man leave the building. He hoped it was the last if this was the cost of it. 

* * *

The world’s population had been cut in half. Caused by a wave of energy that had pulsated throughout the multiverse. Everything, everywhere, sliced in half by a being or a force that Bruce had no way of countering and no way of figuring it out past that. 

He’d gone to the League. Even their numbers sliced by the wave. The Blip, was what everyone had been calling it. A blip of  _ something  _ that had killed half of everything anyone ever loved. It just didn’t make sense. They were trying to figure all of it out but nothing made sense. People were grieving but they were moving on. And one by one the League was telling Batman to give up on getting Robin back. But he couldn’t. Bruce couldn’t give up. He had to tell Dick there was no reason he should have been sorry. 

He still had to tell him he loved him.

He had to tell him how much it meant that he could call Dick his son.

That night had been the first time he ever called him Dad. Bruce couldn’t handle it if that was the last time. 

* * *

A year had gone by and Gotham surely noticed the change in her Knight. Batman was brutal. No light there to hold him back and he utterly refused to take in another bird. He couldn’t lose another child and he refused to have any distractions to finding Dick. Life was never the same without that little boy running around the manor. Life in the manor felt hollow without him swinging around the chandeliers or cartwheeling through the halls, laughing and climbing into Bruce’s bed in the middle of the night. 

Life on the streets were darker than the blackest abyss without the small bird to light the way to love and joy.

* * *

Another year. Two since everyone had vanished and Bruce was starting to lose hope. Dick’s birthday had come and gone and he couldn’t celebrate with his baby. Instead he went to a memorial and stared at his name on a wall. Dick Grayon was marked among the vanished. Robin had his own memorial right in the heart of the city. Right where everyone could see and find and the memorial was consistently covered in flowers and candles. The city was grieving the loss. All of them, good and bad, loved the boy wonder.

* * *

Another year and Bruce had caught a boy stealing the tires of the batmobile the other night. His name was Jason Todd. Bruce knew that he shouldn’t but seeing the way that Jason was living made him want to take in another. What were the odds of the blip happening again? What were the chances of losing another child if he decided to take in another one. He wasn’t replacing Dick. Could never replace him. But maybe his legacy could live on. Maybe Bruce could have another chance. 

* * *

Four years after the blip and Jason was Robin now. He had taken his oath in the middle of the night at the foot of the statue of the original. They’d taken a moment of silence each. Both of them looking up at the face of a boy who was no longer walking the earth and making silent promises to him. For Bruce it was to protect and not give up. To do his best to look at the light because he knew that was what Dick would have wanted. He’d have made fun of him for the way that he acted.

Jason looked up at his inspiration. It was hard to swallow. That the Robin before him, the one that he had watched from his windows, the one that had inspired him to keep going, was dead. That he had vanished and faded to dust right in Batman’s arms. He’d thought the blip could have done some good at first but then he saw that it had taken good people too. People who should have never died like that and Jason made a promise looking up to him that he would do everything in his power to make sure that the memory of Robin was exactly the way that Dick would have wanted it. 

* * *

Five years. It had been five years with the world’s population cut in half. Five years since everything had gone dark for Gotham. Jason tried his best but he never quite got Bruce to light up the same way Dick had. They made a good team and the only thing that kept Jason away from hating the older boy was the fact that he could see Bruce was healing and just took it as a sign of how much he really did care about his little birds. 

They were out on patrol. Specifically on the roof of the GCPD with Jim getting information to go out and catch the latest bad guy who had gotten out of the justice system. Out to do what they had every night since Jason had become Robin when they heard surprised gasps and people started to appear out of nowhere. People who had been in the middle of doing things reappearing as if they were still doing their task even though there was nothing there in front of them. 

A shuddering gasp and cough came from the other side of the roof and all three of them were turning to see a tiny boy in a Robin suit curled on the ground and coughing up a lung. Bruce ran while Jason just stood there. He’d recognize that uniform and that hair anywhere. That was the original Robin. That was Dick. Laying on the other side of the roof and being scooped up into Bruce’s arms. He didn’t know what to do. The people were all back? But, something was wrong.

Dick was older than him but from the looks of him through the shadows he hadn’t aged at all. He still looked like the boy he was when he vanished. Jim and him were both giving the original duo space while Bruce checked Dick over and he stopped coughing.

He seemed to be alright. Relatively. He was dizzy and confused on what was happening and muttering random things that didn’t make any sense. Eventually he drifted out in Bruce’s arms and Jim shook his head and turned off the signal.

“Go. Take care of them.”

The older man gave Jason a squeeze on the shoulder and Batman vanished with his two Robins in tow. 

* * *

In the Batcave Bruce had called for Alfred and got Dick laid out on a medical cot. Jason helped where he could but eventually he was stuck off on the side watching as they made sure Dick was stable. Suddenly he felt like he shouldn’t be there. Jason just felt like a third wheel. He was just a placeholder for Dick even though there was no way that Bruce could have known. Even though he’d seen all that pain. He saw the way that Bruce held Dick, the way he carded fingers through his hair and he couldn’t help but feel jealous even though he knew it was wrong. Dick needed Bruce right now. It wasn’t fair that he got jealous that he wasn’t the one in his attentions. 

Alfred came over to him and gently nudged him out of the room. The old man gave him a kind look and knelt down to him.

“You are just as loved you know?”

Jason didn’t really have a response for that. It didn’t really feel like it.

“Master Bruce loves you just as much as he loves Master Dick. Right now, Dick needs him a little more than you, but I can do my best to fill the void until he can come to you. How about some hot chocolate?”

Jason couldn’t help it. He smiled up at Alfred and gave him a nod before the smile fell and he looked back to the floor.

“What is it?”

“What if he doesn’t like me?”

“My boy, I don’t think anyone could not like you.”

The pair drifted off after that. Heading up to the kitchen and leaving Bruce and Dick alone in the cave. 

Dick hadn’t physically aged at all in the last five years. He was really still the little boy he had been that day. Jason was older than him, not by birth year but by years of life. God he hated that there was a difference. He was pulled from his musings as Dick groaned softly on the cot. Bruce didn’t waste anytime brushing his bangs back and calling out to him.

“Dick, Dickie, can you hear me?”

“....B’rss?”   
“I’m here. Open your eyes for me.”

A few moments later and brilliant blues were blinking owlishly in the light. He looked around like he wasn’t sure where he was but then the recognition hit his face.

“Do you remember anything?”

Dick was about to say no when he cast his memory back and was hit with a violent flashback of the night he’d vanished. Laying in Bruce’s arms his body giving out under him but clinging to every bit of life he could. He didn’t want to leave. He didn’t want to die. 

He didn’t realize he was crying until Bruce shifted and leveled a worried look at him. He was scared to reach out and touch him. Until one word broke through.

“Daddy…”

Dick reached out and Bruce would be damned if he didn’t hug his little boy. He hugged him and held him and the two of them clung onto their safety. Robin may be Batman’s light, but Batman was Robin’s. And neither of them were willing to let go for a very long time. 

**Author's Note:**

> Hi yes this is actual trash. I'm sorry. But I am v tired and would like to go to bed and don't feel like editing so here we go. My friend gave the what if of the multiverse and I just kinda went ham.  
> I hope you all enjoyed and thank you so so much for reading. Please leave a comment and let me know what you think, I take requests and love both Marvel and DC.


End file.
